m9700i-R1 blank screen

Hey guys, i've been on countless amounts of websites looking for help but i just cant seem to get this working. A friend of a friend was getting rid of this laptop as he said it didnt work anymore, it was just getting thrown away so he asked if i'd like it to see if i could fix it. he has already got a new laptop so he doesnt care about it anymore. ANYWAY...

The problem is when i start it up, the fans come on, the lights come on...but thats it. No beeping sound or anything, also no backlight on the screen. What i've also noticed is when the battery is in and i turn it on, the on/off button flashes orange afew times, then it goes off. With the battery in and the power cable plugged in, when i push the on button the light stays orange. If i take the battery out and just have the power cable plugged in, the light turns blue. No idea if that means anything, just adding it incase it does. also i've noticed the battery doesnt charge.

What i've done to try and find the problem is open her up and check all screws are tight. I've had the hard drive out and tried to boot without it, still nothing. I did manage to get it working when i took the ram out, then tried one module. booted up first time! amazing! i had it fixed. turned it off, went out, came back an hour later...nothing happened. so back to square one. Messed around with the ram changing slots and what not but nothing. I've had the fans out and the GPU out, booted it up, the backlight comes on, but it still doesnt post. CPU and GPU have been cleaned and put new thermal compound paste on, again nothing. It wont boot into safe mode and i've tried holding right click on start up and that doesnt work either(with or without GPU). The only thing i havent tried is swapping the GPU from the slot its in to the other, since i have 2 slots but only 1 card. no idea if that would do anything.

So as you can see im in a bit of a pickle haha. any help would be great.

Cheers guys.

 

Hi,

Half running M9700i-R1s with blank screens are very common. I've had many and you'll usually find one on Ebay every week at the moment.
The three most common reasons in order according to my experience are:
1) Motherboard NVidia chip connections have separated. Requires pro repair reball work or replacement motherboard.
- To confirm this is the problem, you can try applying medium to light finger pressure on top of the chip whilst turning it on.
2) Video card GPU connections have separated. Requires pro repair reball work or replacement video card.
3) A bad RAM module.

These boards just weren't built to handle the heat they generate with 2 vga cards installed.

Dez

 

Hello, im new in this forum but maby someone can help me,
atb. i have m9700i-r1 bought it week ago, i have black screen isue, its mean usually i cannot turn on computer normally, my screen is just black but computer runs fine just without screen.
anyway sometimes i can by luck turn it on with screen everything perfect till i will restart it or turn it off. then again thesame story, black screen after turn on till next lucky time.:>
computer can run few days without any issues.
any ideas whats the problem is. in the services they said its graphic card problem but computer runs fine ( when i have luck to turn it on normally with screen ) i playing games etc. its sli nvidia 7950gtx

next thing is i think there is a tv tuner mounted but i cant find any drivers in the web for him. anyone have driver cd or dvd for this laptop?
i can even pay for the copy of whole disc.

Thank You
Best Regards.
my mail [email protected]

 

Welcome to the M9700i blank screen club!

Please see my post here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-area-51-aurora-legacy-systems/607814-m9700i-r1-blank-screen.html

 

Have you tried with an external display? If it works every time, it would mean there's something wrong with the display and not the motherboard/GPU.

Another thing you can check is if the screen is really blank. Sometimes it's just a backlight issue.
When you turn it on and there's nothing on screen, use a flashlight at a steep angle to check if there's really nothing (try it in a dark room).
If the test is positive, it might just be the inverter board; I have a laptop with a broken inverter which switches on and off, maybe there's a possibility that yours does that too.

I kinda had a similar issue on my m15x... At first, the screen wouldn't turn on, so I tried with 1 RAM module (it worked) then with both of them (it didn't) then I switched the RAMs around and it worked again.
After that, I had a problem with AlienFX, sometimes it turned on and sometimes not (a little like your screen), a bios flash fixed this issue...

 

yep i tried with external monitor it didnt worked, but i will try again with function key to switch monitors. and also i will try with flashlight its a good idea thanks m8

i called to uk services hehe they said its gpu problem and they offer me repair or new cards for 500pounds plus 85 for work.. ..
just madness

anyway i can flash my bios but im scared if will will start computer can freeze or after restart dont turn on again. .. but i will try thx

 

Wow at those prices! You could buy a new mobo and gpu for that!

Try and contact mxm-upgrade instead, they shouldn't charge as much...

If the external monitor plus the flashlight thing don't work, I'm afraid that it's really a gpu problem (or, as Dezire stated, the nVidia chip on board).

Have you tried different RAM configurations? Try with only one stick (try every one of them), as stated above, my m15x would'nt turn on the screen in a specific configuration.

 

pls tell me did m9700i-r1 have tv tuner ? because i see on the back of my there is input just i cant find drivers and dont know how recognize tv tuner anyone can help ?

 

option part...

 

i have fix email me [email protected]

btw. if anyone have copy of alien respawn discs drivers etc for m9700i-r1 pls pls let me know

 

Godlej, you can give this a go if you want (at your own responsibility):
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...r-your-dead-graphics-card-your-alienware.html

This is a known issue, the solder is bad and what happens with most of the cards in this series is that when they cool down after they were in use (hot) the solder between the GPU and the PCB cracks and connection is lost.

 

hello i have alienware m9700i-r1 i bought it with black screen failure. i fix it.
i can try to help someone who can help me.
just mail me [email protected]

to explain i just need copy of recovery disc for my alienware drivers etc because i didnt have it, and its really hard to get it. thx

 

You can buy an original driver CD here.

 

Hey Guys, Please help. I have a M9700i-R1 when I turn it on I get a beep, but nothing on the screen. What shall I do?